DOI issue:
No. 113 (August, 1902)
DOI article:Caw, James L.: A scottish painter: E. A. Walton, A. R. S. A.
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19876#0176
E. A. Walton
experiment, especially in water-colour, of which he
early acquired great mastery. In oil, however, in
portraiture at least, it is probable that a completer
technical training would not have been amiss, for
he might then have arrived at his final results in a
simpler and more direct way. Yet it is as a por-
trait painter that he has made most noticeable
advance. Vigorous and bold in handling, full in
tone and well arranged as his early portraits
were, they are, on the whole, too summary and
insistent in method and rather heavy in tone
and colour to be accounted really successful.
But they showed indubitable promise, and in 1889
he sent a portrait of a Girl in Brown to the
New English Art Club, of which he and several of
his friends were then members, which marked its
fulfilment. The influence of Mr. Whistler was by
this time beginning to be more felt in Glasgow,
and with it there came a greater desire to secure
refinement of execution and design. The
feeling for it was Walton's already, for within the
vigour of his presentments of people and land-
scape, one felt that a fine spirit was at work; ac-
quaintance with Whistler's exquisite art brought it
more obviously to the surface, and gave it a more
definite direction. Yet he assimilated and turned
to his own uses only so much of the older artist's
methods as was compatible with his own feeling
for nature; and, in this picture of a young girl
seated against a bare studio wall, one sees that the
simplicity of the pictorial motive, the restricted
harmony of colour, and the sense of enveloppe are
due, to some extent, to the Whistler influence,
while the feeling for beauty and a certain naivete
of conception and expression are the painter's own ;
and developing on these lines, Mr. Walton has
since achieved an even more refined art.
In portraiture he is more sensitive to beauty than
to character, which he subordinates to the decora-
tive pattern and harmonious pictorial ensemble,
which are his chief concern; and this is at once
the weakness and the strength of his work as
portraiture or art. It deprives the one of that
quick human interest which the greatest portrait-
"evening" (Owned by the City of Venice) by e. a. walton
164
experiment, especially in water-colour, of which he
early acquired great mastery. In oil, however, in
portraiture at least, it is probable that a completer
technical training would not have been amiss, for
he might then have arrived at his final results in a
simpler and more direct way. Yet it is as a por-
trait painter that he has made most noticeable
advance. Vigorous and bold in handling, full in
tone and well arranged as his early portraits
were, they are, on the whole, too summary and
insistent in method and rather heavy in tone
and colour to be accounted really successful.
But they showed indubitable promise, and in 1889
he sent a portrait of a Girl in Brown to the
New English Art Club, of which he and several of
his friends were then members, which marked its
fulfilment. The influence of Mr. Whistler was by
this time beginning to be more felt in Glasgow,
and with it there came a greater desire to secure
refinement of execution and design. The
feeling for it was Walton's already, for within the
vigour of his presentments of people and land-
scape, one felt that a fine spirit was at work; ac-
quaintance with Whistler's exquisite art brought it
more obviously to the surface, and gave it a more
definite direction. Yet he assimilated and turned
to his own uses only so much of the older artist's
methods as was compatible with his own feeling
for nature; and, in this picture of a young girl
seated against a bare studio wall, one sees that the
simplicity of the pictorial motive, the restricted
harmony of colour, and the sense of enveloppe are
due, to some extent, to the Whistler influence,
while the feeling for beauty and a certain naivete
of conception and expression are the painter's own ;
and developing on these lines, Mr. Walton has
since achieved an even more refined art.
In portraiture he is more sensitive to beauty than
to character, which he subordinates to the decora-
tive pattern and harmonious pictorial ensemble,
which are his chief concern; and this is at once
the weakness and the strength of his work as
portraiture or art. It deprives the one of that
quick human interest which the greatest portrait-
"evening" (Owned by the City of Venice) by e. a. walton
164